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Re: Aren'y they taking too long?!

Originally Posted by susiedqq

I hear question/statements like that all the time, mostly expressed by teenagers:

Isn't he cute?

I suppose it is asking you to agree or disagree with a negative question.

Wouldn't you agree that it's quite a normal way for people of all ages to ask a question, particularly if they are asking for confirmation of a positive belief or giving a tentative opinion in the form of a request for agreement?

Some of the questions that you have heard from teenagers appear to be more like exclamations than questions, and might perhaps be better punctuated with an exclamation mark, as in:

Re: Aren'y they taking too long?!

I think in the taxi-rank situation, it's more likely that someone would ask 'Shouldn't they be here by now?' or 'This is a lot more than 10 minutes' or 'I thought he said "10 minutes"' - something positive (the first one looks like a question, but it's really a statement).

MrsK would say 'This is an old-fashioned 10 minutes' [=much longer]; but I don't know how widely-used this is.